editorNPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94Laura Sydell fell in love with the intimate storytelling qualities of radio, which combined her passion for theatre and writing with her addiction to news. Over her career she has covered politics, arts, media, religion, and entrepreneurship. Currently Sydell is the Digital Culture Correspondent for NPR's All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, and NPR.org.Sydell's work focuses on the ways in which technology is transforming our culture and how we live. For example, she reported on robotic orchestras and independent musicians who find the Internet is a better friend than a record label as well as ways technology is changing human relationships.Sydell has traveled through India and China to look at the impact of technology on developing nations. In China, she reported how American television programs like Lost broke past China's censors and found a devoted following among the emerging Chinese middle class. She found in India that cell phones are the computer of theNPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94Laura SydellThu, 24 Nov 2016 10:54:00 +0000Laura Sydellhttp://redriverradio.org
Laura SydellA lot of fake and misleading news stories were shared across social media during the election. One that got a lot of traffic had this headline: "FBI Agent Suspected In Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead In Apparent Murder-Suicide." The story is completely false, but it was shared on Facebook over half a million times.We wondered who was behind that story and why it was written. It appeared on a site that had the look and feel of a local newspaper. Denverguardian.com even had the local weather. But it had only one news story — the fake one.We tried to look up who owned it and hit a wall. The site was registered anonymously. So we brought in some professional help.By day, John Jansen is head of engineering at Master-McNeil Inc., a tech company in Berkeley, Calif. In the interest of real news he helped us track down the owner of Denverguardian.com.Jansen started by looking at the site's history. "Commonly that's called scraping or crawling websites," he says.Jansen is kind of like anWe Tracked Down A Fake-News Creator In The Suburbs. Here's What We Learnedhttp://redriverradio.org/post/npr-finds-head-covert-fake-news-operation-suburbs
86234 as http://redriverradio.orgWed, 23 Nov 2016 20:41:00 +0000We Tracked Down A Fake-News Creator In The Suburbs. Here's What We LearnedLaura SydellDonald Trump took direct shots at some of the biggest tech companies during the presidential campaign. When Apple wouldn't help the FBI unlock a phone used by a terrorist, he suggested boycotting the company.In a Fox News interview, he lashed out against Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. "The politicians in Washington don't tax Amazon like they should be taxed," Trump said. "He's got a huge antitrust problem because he's controlling so much."For his part, Bezos once tweeted he'd like to reserve Trump a seat on his commercial space rocket.Besides the direct attacks on tech companies — Trump's protectionist trade policies, threats to impose tariffs and deport millions of immigrants, and his affiliations with groups widely seen as racist all put him at odds with most tech company leaders."We try as much as possible to embrace and take advantage of the fact that the diverse perspectives bring better innovation, better ideas, and this campaign very much has at times been against that set of principlesTech Leaders Vow To Resist Trump, But They Also Hope To Find Common Groundhttp://redriverradio.org/post/tech-leaders-vow-resist-trump-they-also-hope-find-common-ground
85783 as http://redriverradio.orgMon, 14 Nov 2016 20:51:00 +0000Tech Leaders Vow To Resist Trump, But They Also Hope To Find Common GroundLaura SydellFor decades, one company has pretty much had the monopoly on TV ratings: Nielsen. But, the way people watch TV is changing. A lot of fans are streaming shows from the Internet — not watching on cable TV.Old-fashioned Nielsen ratings wouldn't show the habits of a family like Kevin Seal's."We do not follow the appointment viewing, wait-for-the-show-to-come-on-at-a-given-time schedule," says Seal, who lives in San Francisco with his wife and six-year-old son. "We watch a lot of Netflix programming — recently Black Mirror was the one that we devoured in its entirety."The failure of Nielsen to reveal data about the habits of family's like the Seals has opened the way for a startup called Symphony, which is tracking TV watching in all its forms.It is actually easier to track what people stream over the Internet. But Amazon and Netflix don't release those numbers. Those companies say the numbers aren't important because they don't sell ads — they sell subscriptions. As long as people can findWhat's Hot On Netflix? A Startup Aims To Track Ratings In The Streaming Agehttp://redriverradio.org/post/whats-hot-netflix-startup-aims-track-ratings-streaming-age
85419 as http://redriverradio.orgMon, 07 Nov 2016 22:37:00 +0000What's Hot On Netflix? A Startup Aims To Track Ratings In The Streaming AgeLaura SydellOne of Donald Trump's most ardent supporters in Silicon Valley allegedly told two of his classmates at Stanford that he thought South Africa's former apartheid system of government was "a sound economic system." On Thursday, through a spokesperson, Thiel denied ever having supported apartheid.In a blog post on Medium, Julie Lythcott-Haims wrote that she was a dorm mate with now Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel at Stanford in 1985-86. Lythcott-Haims wrote that Thiel told her that "moral issues were irrelevant" to the racist government's economy.As an African-American woman, Lythcott-Haims wrote, she was taken aback that he would say this to her "with no facial affect." She went on to say that Thiel made "no effort to even acknowledge the pain the concept of apartheid could possibly raise for me, a Black women."Lythcott-Haims — a Harvard-trained lawyer, author of the book How to Raise an Adult and a former dean at Stanford — says she brought up the incident because Thiel is anMajor Trump Backer's Alleged Positive Comments About Apartheid Stir Angerhttp://redriverradio.org/post/major-trump-backers-positive-comments-about-apartheid-stir-anger
85220 as http://redriverradio.orgThu, 03 Nov 2016 22:09:00 +0000Major Trump Backer's Alleged Positive Comments About Apartheid Stir AngerLaura SydellSilicon Valley is a politically liberal place — and that is reflected in where people are sending their money this election season. Ninety-five percent of contributions from tech employees to the presidential campaigns have gone to Hillary Clinton, according to Crowdpac, a group that tracks political donations.But one well-known outlier has caused a lot of friction in the Valley.Peter Thiel is part of what many people in the Valley call "the PayPal mafia," a group of investors who got very rich by helping to fund PayPal. Thiel was also an early investor in Facebook and he continues to fund startups. In the left-leaning Silicon Valley, he's a self-identified Libertarian who supported Rand Paul.Thiel's outside-the-box thinking is part of what many thought made him a smart investor. Then he came out in support of Donald Trump, and that was a bridge too far for some.Ellen Pao, who runs Project Include, an organization aimed at diversity, stopped working with the startup incubator YPeter Thiel Stands Out In Silicon Valley For Support Of Donald Trumphttp://redriverradio.org/post/peter-thiel-stands-out-silicon-valley-support-donald-trump
85062 as http://redriverradio.orgMon, 31 Oct 2016 22:21:00 +0000Peter Thiel Stands Out In Silicon Valley For Support Of Donald TrumpLaura SydellIt Ain't Me, Babe: Researchers Find Flaws In Police Facial Recognitionhttp://redriverradio.org/post/it-aint-me-babe-researchers-find-flaws-police-facial-recognition
84754 as http://redriverradio.orgTue, 25 Oct 2016 09:05:00 +0000It Ain't Me, Babe: Researchers Find Flaws In Police Facial RecognitionLaura SydellWhat happens when two human political journalists compete against a computer over which can do the best job predicting the issues that will dominate the news in the presidential election? Well, you are about to find out.The two humans and the computers each got to predict five issues per presidential candidate that would get the most coverage in the news and on the blogs between Sept. 12 and Oct. 12. (The time frame covers only a few days of the release of Donald Trump's vulgar comments about women. So the final list isn't dominated by that controversy.)The two humans are Simon Maloy of Salon.com and Jonah Goldberg of the National Review. The computer is a program designed by the digital analytics firm Quid. The list of their top five predictions is below.And what a difference a month makes. Goldberg had expected a lot more discussion of Trump's tax returns and expected that Clinton would make a big mistake at the debate. "I think it would be inappropriately laughing at something shePundits Vs. Machine: Who Did Better At Predicting Campaign Controversies?http://redriverradio.org/post/pundits-vs-machine-who-did-better-predicting-campaign-controversies
84418 as http://redriverradio.orgMon, 17 Oct 2016 21:40:00 +0000Pundits Vs. Machine: Who Did Better At Predicting Campaign Controversies?Laura SydellDespite having more than 300 million users, Twitter has struggled to make a profit and keep its investors happy. Yet, the service has arguably been good for public dialogues and news gathering.So as Twitter considers a sale, maybe it's worth pondering the idea of Twitter getting out from under the pressures of Wall Street and turning itself into a nonprofit.Twitter at crossroadsGrassroots movements have made great use of Twitter.Take sexual assault victims. Laura Palumbo of National Sexual Violence Resource Center points to one hashtag, #Cosby, that trended when there was a lot of discussion of accusations against Bill Cosby. Palumbo says victims used it "to contribute their perspectives to the same threads as media, lawmakers and the other audiences who are following these stories."These grassroots contributions often affect media coverage and create new movements. The Black Lives Matter movement took off as a hashtag on Twitter.But as pressure has increased on Twitter to grow andAs Buyers Circle, Could Twitter Be Better Off As A Nonprofit?http://redriverradio.org/post/buyers-circle-could-twitter-be-better-non-profit
83918 as http://redriverradio.orgWed, 05 Oct 2016 16:34:00 +0000As Buyers Circle, Could Twitter Be Better Off As A Nonprofit?Laura SydellCopyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.Tech Group To Set Industry Standards For Artificial Intelligencehttp://redriverradio.org/post/tech-group-set-industry-standards-artificial-intelligence
83636 as http://redriverradio.orgThu, 29 Sep 2016 11:45:00 +0000Tech Group To Set Industry Standards For Artificial IntelligenceLaura SydellRepublican lawmakers are accusing the Obama administration of allowing countries like Russia, China and Iran to take control over the Internet. Their beef with the administration focuses on a relatively obscure nonprofit overseen by the U.S. government that is scheduled to become fully independent Saturday.The organization is called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN for short. Its history traces back to a graduate student at UCLA named Jon Postel.He started keeping track of the unique numbers assigned to particular computers using the Internet, during its early days. Jonathan Zittrain, an Internet law professor at Harvard, says Postel kept a clipboard to make sure no user had the same number — sort of like a phone book."It was just sort of an honor system that would stop Caltech from coming in, or Bulgaria, from saying, 'You know what, we're going to start using those numbers,' " Zittrain says. "It's just something that would be a way of coordinating asRepublicans Say Obama Administration Is Giving Away The Internethttp://redriverradio.org/post/republicans-say-obama-administration-giving-away-internet
83510 as http://redriverradio.orgMon, 26 Sep 2016 19:45:00 +0000Republicans Say Obama Administration Is Giving Away The InternetLaura SydellPredictions are for psychics — and in this very unpredictable political season they might do a better job than the pundits. But what about a computer? I set out to see how well it could predict which controversies around the candidates were likely to re-emerge over the course of a month. And two human pundits have agreed to compete against the machine.Meet the ContestantsThe ComputerThe computer is run by Quid, a data analytics firm that uses proprietary software to search, visualize and analyze text. Since the computer can't speak, Dan Buczaczer, Quid's head of marketing, is going to speak for it and explain how it "thinks.""Quid uses proprietary software to search, visualize, and then analyze massive amounts of text," Buczaczer says. "In this case, what we're talking about today, that massive amount of text happens to comes from news sources and blogs written about a particular topic, in this case the presidential election."And Buczaczer is talking about some 300,000 U.S. blogs andPundits Vs. Machine: Predicting Controversies In The Presidential Race http://redriverradio.org/post/pundits-vs-machine-predicting-controversies-presidential-race
83309 as http://redriverradio.orgTue, 20 Sep 2016 13:41:00 +0000Pundits Vs. Machine: Predicting Controversies In The Presidential Race Laura SydellIf you're like me, somewhere in your house you imagine there must be a pile of lost white iPhone earbuds. The pile is probably right next to the stack of single socks. It's one of several reasons I never liked wireless Bluetooth headphones. They're smaller and even easier to lose.But, if the rumors are true — and most likely they are — Apple is about to get rid of the headphone jack on its latest smartphone, the iPhone 7, and tip the scales toward wireless Bluetooth headphones. The company has scheduled a press event in San Francisco on Wednesday."Getting rid of the headphone jack is panic worthy," says usability expert Joshua Porter of the design firm Rocket Insights. "It's going to be a hard argument to make."Porter says like a lot of iPhone users, he personally has several headsets that will immediately become obsolete unless there is a way to connect them to the new iPhone.Apple is likely to make an adapter that lets users plug their earbuds into the Lightning jack. But Apple usersApple May Test iPhone Users' Loyalty If It Dumps The Headphone Jackhttp://redriverradio.org/post/apple-may-test-iphone-users-loyalty-if-it-dumps-headphone-jack
82724 as http://redriverradio.orgTue, 06 Sep 2016 22:45:00 +0000Apple May Test iPhone Users' Loyalty If It Dumps The Headphone JackLaura SydellDelta canceled about 530 flights on Tuesday in addition to about 1,000 canceled a day earlier after a power outage in Atlanta brought down the company's computers, grinding the airline's operation virtually to a halt.Seth Kaplan, who follows the airline industry, asks the question on everyone's mind: "If every small business on the corner can manage to keep its website running through a cloud-based server and all those sorts of things, why can't Delta Air Lines with all its resources manage to do that?"And in fact, Delta isn't the first airline to be downed by computer malfunction — add Southwest, United and others to the list — and unfortunately, this meltdown is unlikely to be the last."It's a fair criticism," says Kaplan, managing partner of Airline Weekly, an independent publication that follows the industry. But, he says, airlines aren't like other businesses."Because they have to worry so much about safety and security, they are constrained in ways that other businesses aren't,"Why The Airline Industry Could Keep Suffering System Failures Like Delta'shttp://redriverradio.org/post/why-airline-industry-could-keep-suffering-system-failures-deltas
81537 as http://redriverradio.orgTue, 09 Aug 2016 21:11:00 +0000Why The Airline Industry Could Keep Suffering System Failures Like Delta'sLaura SydellTwo of the highest profile women in tech have had a tough year. Marissa Mayer, the CEO of Yahoo, saw her company sold to Verizon. Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the experimental blood testing company Theranos, was banned from her own labs by regulators for two years.Though men founders and CEOs fail all the time, it may have different implications when women mess up, says Marianne Cooper, a sociologist at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University."There are so many other male leaders that ... failure doesn't really create expectations about other men's leadership capacities or capabilities," she says.When former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay was indicted for securities fraud or Angelo Mozilo, the former chairman of Countrywide Financial, was associated with bringing on the housing crisis nobody suggested it was because they were men.Because there are so few women CEOs, especially in tech, Cooper says when a Marissa Mayer or Elizabeth Holmes fails it can feedIs There A Double Standard When Women CEOs In Tech Stumble?http://redriverradio.org/post/there-double-standard-when-women-ceos-tech-stumble
81277 as http://redriverradio.orgWed, 03 Aug 2016 22:15:00 +0000Is There A Double Standard When Women CEOs In Tech Stumble?Laura SydellCopyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.Pokemon Go: The Live Video Game Everyone Seems To Be Playinghttp://redriverradio.org/post/pokemon-go-live-video-game-everyone-seems-be-playing
80097 as http://redriverradio.orgTue, 12 Jul 2016 10:40:00 +0000Pokemon Go: The Live Video Game Everyone Seems To Be PlayingLaura SydellCopyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.Game Developers Try Hard To Appeal To Professional Competitorshttp://redriverradio.org/post/game-developers-try-hard-appeal-professional-competitors
79002 as http://redriverradio.orgFri, 17 Jun 2016 09:09:00 +0000Game Developers Try Hard To Appeal To Professional CompetitorsLaura SydellThe annual video game trade show E3 began this week in Los Angeles under the cloud of the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla., the deadliest in America's recent history. The conference is expected to draw tens of thousands of industry professionals who want hands-on experience with games that turn virtual violence into entertainment.There were signs that organizers were trying to bridge the contradictions.At the downtown LA Convention Center, flags were at half-staff. Actress Aisha Tyler, hosting the press conference for video game maker Ubisoft, mixed her usual humor and enthusiasm with an announcement that the she admitted would "feel a little incongruous and potentially even uncomfortable for some of you."Indeed, it's not often that a preview of violent video games begins with condolences to the victims of a mass shooting. Tyler stood onstage, flanked by someone in a giraffe costume on one side and dancers dressed as candy canes on the other, and offered deepest sympathies to the victimsVideo Game Trade Show Kicks Off Under Cloud Of Real-Life Violencehttp://redriverradio.org/post/video-game-trade-show-kicks-under-cloud-real-life-violence
78869 as http://redriverradio.orgTue, 14 Jun 2016 15:16:00 +0000Video Game Trade Show Kicks Off Under Cloud Of Real-Life ViolenceLaura SydellCopyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.Tech Billionare Peter Thiel Comes Forward In War Against 'Gawker'http://redriverradio.org/post/tech-billionare-peter-theil-comes-forward-war-against-gawker
78105 as http://redriverradio.orgThu, 26 May 2016 20:37:00 +0000Tech Billionare Peter Thiel Comes Forward In War Against 'Gawker'Laura SydellFor most of us, eye tracking technology sounds interesting. But it's not life changing. Eye tracking allows users to move a cursor around a computer or mobile device simply by moving your eyes and head.Oded Ben Dov initially used eye tracking technology to develop a video game that he showed off on Israeli TV. The next day, he says, he got a phone call from a man who told him: "I can't move my hands or legs. Can you make me a smartphone I could use?"That's when Ben Dov realized that his eye tracking technology could change lives."For me, that was a calling to put my skills and knowledge to good use." Ben Dov went on to found Sesame Enable, a company that sells smartphones for people who can't use their hands.Sesame Enable, which is based in Israel, was in Mountain View, Calif., this week for Google I/O, the annual conference for developers who make products using Google technologies. Sesame Enable is getting support from Google.org — the company's charitable arm.Eve Andersson, whoFor People With Disabilities, New Technology Can Be Life Changinghttp://redriverradio.org/post/people-disabilities-new-technology-can-be-life-changing
77907 as http://redriverradio.orgSat, 21 May 2016 17:59:00 +0000For People With Disabilities, New Technology Can Be Life ChangingLaura Sydellhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBvzKp0AERE Elizabeth Holmes fit into the Silicon Valley success mold. A young Stanford dropout who left school to pursue her entrepreneurial vision, she founded Theranos and said she would disrupt the world of medicine with easy and inexpensive blood tests.Now her company is under federal investigation and extra scrutiny by federal regulators. And questions are being raised about whether applying hardware and software business culture to biotechnology is dangerous.Holmes was an alluring figure; young and intense in the kind of way Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was. Like Jobs, she wore only black turtlenecks because she didn't have time to think about her wardrobe.And of course, there was the TED talk in which Holmes painted a picture of a world in which too many people avoided blood tests because of the cost, inconvenience and discomfort of giving so much blood. Sometimes they learned too late about a serious health condition. But, her company — Theranos —Biotech's Theranos Offers A Cautionary Tale For Silicon Valleyhttp://redriverradio.org/post/biotechs-theranos-offers-cautionary-tale-silicon-valley
77050 as http://redriverradio.orgMon, 02 May 2016 16:16:00 +0000Biotech's Theranos Offers A Cautionary Tale For Silicon Valley